A Book Review from Books At A Glance
by Matthew B. Tabke
John Goldingay is senior professor of Old Testament and the David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Ph.D. at University of Oxford and has a Doctor of Divinity Lambeth degree. In the Church of England, Goldingay was ordained as a deacon in 1966 and a priest in 1967. He has published extensively with prominent works such as his Biblical Theology, a 17-volume Old Testament for Everyone series, and a three-volume Old Testament Theology. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for Old Testament Study. Goldingay serves on the editorial board for the Library of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies and on the Oxford Interfaith Forum. He is also recognized as a translator and serves on the Task Force for Biblical Interpretation in the Anglican Communion.
The Baker Commentary on the Old Testament seeks to take a specialized approach to commentaries on three points. First, they divide the Old Testament into the canonical units of Pentateuch, Historical Books, Wisdom and Psalms, and Prophets (viii). Second, they focus on the narrative form which much of the Scriptural material presents itself as (viii). Third, they seek to bring out the theological dimensions of the text to reveal the message that God has for His people (viii). The commentary series is meant to be “valuable to scholars and researchers,” but is primarily designed for “serious students of the Bible rather than for laity or for light pastoral preparation” (viii). The last important feature of this series is that the authors “share an evangelical commitment to the Bible as God’s Word, which addresses God’s people” (ix). With this interpretive foundation in mind, each author was allowed to develop their own hermeneutical principles and exegetical method of interpretation for the text. The commentary includes an introductory chapter that covers background issues before moving to an analysis of the text. The analysis offered by Goldingay includes an overview of each section of Scripture and a new translation before moving section-by-section rather than verse-by-verse through the text before ending each chapter with theological reflections on the text.
The author lays out his thesis for the book of Joshua on page 1 of the introductory chapter when he says, “the Joshua story recounts how Yahweh enabled the Israelites to take control of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership, and how Joshua and Eleazar distributed the land among the Israelite clans.” Two guiding questions for the book of Joshua are proposed: how did the Israelites get in the land of Canaan and take control of it, and why do the different tribes of Israel live where they do? From here, the introductory section focuses on establishing the principle of narrative and story as the guiding interpretive framework for viewing the book of Joshua. The introduction is broken up into five sections: the Joshua story, reading contexts, theology, Joshua in modern scholarly study, and structure and outline. What readers will want to be aware of here is that Goldingay is heavily steeped in modern academic Biblical scholarship which oftentimes is not Christian in its orientation. This leads to some tendencies that push him towards a position of mastering over the text through skills gained from the secular academy rather than as a student of Sacred Scripture who submits to the text and uses his skills to accentuate what God is saying to His people in all times and places. The inevitable result of this is a soft theological liberalism that creeps in at various junctures, coupled with a somewhat confused presentation of material. The section on Joshua in modern scholarly study displays this quite clearly. Goldingay writes regarding archeological discoveries, “when Joshua and the Israelites arrived (in the land of Canaan), neither Jericho nor the Ai were the powerful walled cities that they had once been. At most, they were village settlements. Is it a coincidence that the two cities upon whose destruction the narrative puts the most emphasis are ones that did not exist at the time?” (p. 40). One who reads this passage will not be informed of the author’s actual position regarding these statements and the question offered in this excerpt. It seems here as though Goldingay is willing to forgo the historicity of Joshua so that he might appeal to the validity of secular Christian scholarship which presupposes heavy fabrication of the Biblical texts.
Goldingay continues along similar lines when he discusses the text forms of Joshua in the next subsection. He says, “while Joshua is an authoritative book…one cannot speak in terms of an authoritative text of the book” (42). What he means by this is that the canonicity of Joshua (like many OT books) was a complex process involving the collection of stories, perhaps the selective rewriting and modification of stories (LXX vs. MT), translation, redaction, and decisions made by groups of people at various times which we know little about. This would be acceptable if the author had not left these questions about the final state of the text open to such doubt. Nowhere are we reassured that despite whatever process they may have come to us through, the Scriptures (even in the English language) are to be considered the inerrant Word of God. This is not surprising given large distaste for the doctrine of inerrancy in Western international scholarship (Goldingay is English), but it does not give confidence to the humble rural Iowan pastor who needs to speak God’s Word to God’s people. Goldingay does offer a “vague statement” on the whole of scholarly discussion, but this statement does not nullify the questionable comments he previously made concerning the conquest of Jericho and Ai (47).
As mentioned above, the commentary proper includes an overview of each passage, a translation, an interpretation, and some theological reflections on the passage. Goldingay continues the heavy focus on narrative and story, making sure to mark out key characters, events, turning points, irony, humor, communication techniques, ambiguity, and allusiveness. The overview sections identify major themes in each passage and attempt to look backwards and forwards to establish context. In other words, the overview attempts to drill down the context of the various texts to prepare readers to read the translation and exegesis. While some aspects of these overviews are helpful for understanding what follows, they can at times, work more like a flood of information that is difficult to sift through. This is a theme in the commentary that continues throughout. Goldingay also seems overly concerned with the influence of chapter and verse divisions on the text. While addressing the non-authoritative nature of these divisions is warranted, the fact that they are continuously brought up overestimates their influence on modern readers’ reception of the text. Many Christians, whether laity or formally educated in theology, tend to recognize that the Bible can be consumed in a variety of ways, sometimes verse-by-verse, sometimes chapter by chapter, and sometimes in larger sections that follow stories. Goldingay’s focus here appears to be on the fact that these chapter and verse divisions are meant to show various biases about how to read the text by those who imposed them. This is not to say Goldingay believes these divisions are malicious, but he seems overly concerned with how they present the Biblical material. For all the talk about verse and chapter divisions, the translation sections (which generally appear to lean towards a dynamic equivalence philosophy) adhere to the English divisions in the end.
The Interpretation sections in the commentary move through the text in chunks. They will sometimes tackle single verses, sometimes analyze a few verses, and sometimes group larger sections together. There are three critiques here that I offer. First, while the meaning of the text is often explained, the continued information overload is a tendency of Goldingay’s that can be difficult to follow. Because he packs so much information in these sections and because they sometimes overcast larger sections, which paragraph is speaking about which aspect of the text becomes muddied.
Second, the grouping of large sections of text together underanalyzes long sections of Joshua. For instance, given my own research interests in Biblical story summaries, I was particularly interested in his analysis of 24:2-13. This group of verses is given a mere three paragraphs and was not recognized as the major literary phenomenon that modern scholars have begun to see it as. Because Goldingay has written a Biblical Theology, I would have expected him to make mention of the review of Israel’s history in relation to that discipline. The fact that he didn’t betrays his modern scholarly training and practice which is also showcased by his distaste in other areas of the commentary for the rich theological heritage upon which orthodox Christian theology has been built (Clement of Rome and Justin Martyr on 104, Augustine and Calvin on 238-239).
Finally, Goldingay tends to de-supernaturalize some aspects of Joshua which are clearly extraordinary interventions into human affairs by the Lord. Little emphasis is given to the miraculous aspects of the Jordan River in Joshua 3:13-16. While Goldingay does speak about the waters ceasing their normal flow as the priests’ feet touch the edge of the river, the supernatural nature of this miracle is not analyzed in detail (120). The same can be said about Joshua 10:12-13 where one of the greatest miracles ever to take place occurs when Joshua makes a request for the sun and moon to stop moving across the sky. The text says, “the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day” (v. 13b NASB). Goldingay focuses on background information and Joshua’s request to the Lord rather than the incredible work of God in this instance. Though his comments on verse 14 draw out the narrator’s astonishment of the Lord listening to and obeying the request of Joshua, which is a prominent emphasis of the text, the disinterest by Goldingay in the supernatural occurrence that took place dulls the reader’s interest in the fantastic display of authority by God to command the cosmic powers.
The last section of each chapter is given to theological reflections on the various texts analyzed. While much could be said regarding these sections, a simple critique can be offered in that they have strong emphasis on what the theological reflections of the Israelites might have been rather than what modern readers should do with the text. Goldingay’s theological liberalism often morphs into political liberalism in these sections and betrays several biases that he appears to believe are non-existent. There is, of course, nothing wrong with being biased; we all are, but Goldingay still appears to be operating under the Enlightenment notion of presuppositionless exegesis which has long been proven to be impossible by scholars at least as early as Bavinck in Christianity and Science. Given the content of the commentary and its stated goals, along with the critiques offered, I believe the commentary may have accomplished its purpose of being a commentary for serious students of the Bible, just not serious Christian students of the Bible. Joshua by John Goldingay is thorough in a scholarly sense because it engages with much of the 20th century’s critical scholarship, yet because it was written to engage with a vaguely defined audience, it is uncertain who this commentary is meant to be for. I would not recommend this commentary unless you are a Ph.D. student writing a dissertation on a particular passage in Joshua, and even then, I suggest you borrow it from a library rather than purchase it. If you are in pastoral ministry or are a “serious student of the Bible,” I suggest looking for commentaries by authors who are more doctrinally solidified than Goldingay appears to be. This commentary is likely to leave you with more questions than answers regarding the questions you have about the book of Joshua and will certainly not help you “pay careful attention to your teaching and to your doctrine” (1 Tim. 4:16).
Matthew B. Tabke